


I'll Buy That Dream

by lillianmmalter



Series: A Sunday Kind of Love [2]
Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: Canon Disabled Character, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Gen, Period-Typical Homophobia, Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-07
Updated: 2016-11-07
Packaged: 2018-08-29 15:15:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8494891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lillianmmalter/pseuds/lillianmmalter
Summary: The youngest Sousa siblings both just want some kind of happy ending. If only the rest of the world would play along.A prequel to Her Light Spreads, meant to be read after it.





	

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from the [song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iX9Kwd542xk) playing on the radio in the middle section.
> 
> Thanks, as always, to Ellix, who loves Edith almost as much as I do. I'll write another one-shot for this series at some point, I promise.

_December 1945_

Daniel unlocked the door to his apartment and stumped inside, hanging his crutch on the wall hook meant for a coat and hanging his coat up on the rickety coat rack next to it the way he always did. There was another, smaller, men’s coat already hanging there along with his baby sister’s hat and jacket. Daniel eyed it suspiciously.

“Danny? Is that you?” Edith called out from the direction of the kitchen.

“No, it’s Howard Stark,” he called out and slowly made his way through their tiny living room and into the kitchen where Edith stood stirring something on the stovetop. She was wearing their mother’s faded and stained old apron over what looked like one of his shirts tucked into her pencil skirt. Edith caught sight of him and stuck her tongue out. 

“How many times do I have to tell you to stop callin’ me Danny?” he asked.

Edith grinned at him. “At least another hundred.”

“Who else is here?” Daniel asked, leaning against the bit of wall that separated the kitchen from the rest of the apartment.

“What?” She looked honestly confused, so Daniel changed course.

“One of your friends must have left his coat here.”

She still looked bemused for a moment before her eyes brightened and she grinned.

“Nope, that’s mine. I picked it up off a guy on Houston for a quarter. I’ll be nice and warm this winter!”

“Any blood stains on it?”

“Haha. You’re hilarious.”

“It’s a man’s coat.”

Edith rolled her eyes. “So? It’ll be warm, won’t it? They don’t make girl’s coats to be that warm. And besides, you should check out the pockets in that thing. How come you never told me men’s coats had such great pockets? I don’t even need to carry a purse anymore with that thing on, it’s great!”

Daniel chuckled and moved closer to her to see what she was cooking, flicking her on the ear as he did and making her shriek. She elbowed him in the side in retaliation.

“Caldo verde?”

“Mm. I was in the mood for soup and Mr. Farias was having a sale on sausages, so that clinched it,” she said, slapping his hand away from trying to steal a piece.

“Cause a sale on sausages is always reassuring.”

She gave him a look so reminiscent of their mother his heart skipped a beat.

“So, how was work? You ask out that lady agent yet?”

“It was fine, and no. It’s not like that,” Daniel said even as he felt his ears turn red at the mere mention of Peggy, giving the lie to what really was the truth between them. It wasn’t like that and couldn’t be because the last thing she needed was one more bozo drooling after her and not respecting her talents. Although, late at night it might be a little difficult not imagining just how far those talents went. But Peggy never needed to know that.

“Uh huh,” Edith said, giving him a look that was all their dad.

Speaking of which…

“You call Dad yet?”

Edith huffed and rolled her eyes. “No, and I’m not gonna. He’s just gonna get on my case if I’ve met any good college men yet and why don’t I settle down, it’d be good for me, I can’t live with you forever. As if you and that lady agent of yours are getting married tomorrow and I’m cramping your style. Like he doesn’t know you live like a monk.”

Daniel rolled his eyes at her and stole a piece of the cooked sausage, evading her slapping hand this time before edging around her to start shredding the kale she hadn’t got to yet.

“So, speaking of living like a monk, you gonna be home this weekend?” Edith asked a little too casually to be trusted.

Daniel gave her his own look this time. 

“For part of it. I’m on the night shift Friday.”

“Again?” She sounded genuinely annoyed on his behalf. “That’s the third time this week they’ve got you working night shift on top of your regular hours. When are you supposed to sleep? They can’t have that few agents.”

He shrugged. “The other agents have families.” He didn’t mention that he was the one volunteering for the extra shifts.

“And I ain’t family?”

“Families with wives and kids,” he said. “Why? You hoping to invite someone over or something?”

“No. But there’s a new Lana Turner movie. I was hoping you’d take me.”

She wasn’t telling him everything, but Daniel let it slide. She was a grown woman and whatever their dad and older sisters thought she really didn’t need him to chaperone her to the alter.

“We’ll go to the matinee after I get off work Saturday.”

“It won’t be very date-like then.”

Daniel cocked an eyebrow at her. “You really want to go on a date with your brother?”

“You need the practice,” she said. “I can teach you all the tricks the college boys are using these days so you don’t embarrass yourself when you finally ask out your lady agent.” She made a big show of yawning and stretching so her arm wound up around his shoulders.

Daniel couldn’t help it, his face flamed red even as he shrugged her off. He glared at her and threw a piece of onion in her hair.

“Hey!”

“I know how to take a lady on a date, pest.”

“You sure about that? Cause as far as I can tell you haven’t bothered even trying since you got back.”

Daniel shifted, the edges of his prosthetic digging in a little more noticeably now that he was thinking about it. Not that there was much time these days he didn’t think about it.

“Things are different since I got back,” he said quietly. He didn’t need to look up to know she was wearing a devastated expression on her face.

“Danny…”

“Edie, drop it, okay?”

“You’re not broken just cause you lost your leg.”

“I said drop it.”

Edith was quiet, working her mouth in that way she had when she had something to say but wasn’t sure how to word it. Eventually she just said, “Okay,” and the matter was dropped.

The conversation turned to lighter things as they finished cooking and sat down to eat and Daniel smiled to himself that he had a pretty good thing going here, all things considered. Aside from his leg and a few jerks at the office, there wasn’t much he’d change if he had the option. He was adjusting to life after the war. Things were good. Or at least not bad. He just needed to figure out how to convince his sister of that. And maybe himself.

 

_January 1946_

Daniel opened the apartment door to Helen Forrest and Dick Haymes singing on the radio. He smiled wistfully and put his things away before walking into the living room and stopping so suddenly he almost fell over.

Edith was necking on the couch.

With another girl.

He stood there staring for longer than he later cared to admit. He thought about her penchant for stealing his clothes, about that stupid men’s coat she was so proud of, about her obsession with Lana Turner, and with Rita Hayworth before that. Both were actresses his buddies in France had admired as pinups during the war. And he’d been dumb enough to think she just liked their movies.

Damn.

She and the girl were really going at it too, hands roaming all over and mouths working furiously.

He opened his mouth to stop them and had to clear his throat to find his voice.

“Edith.”

They jumped apart. Both of them paled, but the girl panicked at seeing him standing there and vaulted over one of their arm chairs to get to the kitchen, her blonde hair flying behind her. There was the sound of the window being pried open and a clatter on the fire escape and then nothing but the radio and the noise of cars and people in the street.

She hadn’t even grabbed her purse.

They stared after her dumbly and then looked at each other. 

Daniel started to get angry.

“So, she seems nice,” he said. He gave Edith a hard look that didn’t seem to have any effect on her at all. She just stared at him, a combination of fear and willfulness in her eyes and the tilt of her chin. “Where’d you meet her?”

Edith crossed her arms in front of her chest. “At a house party.”

“Who with?”

“Danny, it’s really none of your business.”

“Who with, Edie?”

She sighed, but relented. “Some girls I know from school. One of their friends was throwing a party so I went.”

“Was it an all girls thing or mixed company?”

“It was mixed. What does it matter?”

“It matters because I just caught you necking with some girl I’ve never seen before who didn’t even have the grace to stay and make sure you’d be alright.”

Edith stared at him, her mouth gaping open. “You’d never hit me,” she said. It was almost a challenge.

“No, I wouldn’t. Does she know that?”

The question seemed to bring her up short. He could see the betrayal start to form in her eyes before she closed herself off and glared at him.

“It’s none of your business.”

“Really? Cause I kinda think it is. I think you made it my business when you brought her into our home.” Edith huffed. Daniel clenched his jaw then pressed on. “Did you hit on her, or did she hit on you?” 

“Danny!”

“Answer the question, Edie. Which one of you started it?”

“If me kissing a girl bothers you so much-”

“Dammit, Edie, I don’t care that you were kissing a girl, I care whether or not you’re being smart about it!”

She stared at him slack-jawed for long enough that he sighed and sat down next to her on the couch. It took him a few breaths before he could be sure he wouldn’t snap at her again.

“Look,” he said softly, “you’re an adult now, you can do what you want. I’m not gonna stop helping you with school just cause you kissed a girl, but if this is something that’s gonna become a habit I really hope you’ve thought about what it means. How dangerous it could be.”

“I’m not stupid, Daniel, I know how to avoid the wrong sort of attention. I’ve been doing it for years.”

Daniel flinched at that and felt guilty for not knowing, for not paying proper attention to the signs. She’d probably been sneaking around the entire time he was overseas, and possibly even before that. Their family was known to blossom into romance early, after all. Their parents and both of their older sisters were all married before they were twenty, and he wasn’t even shaving yet when he kissed his first girl, never mind the whoring around their brother did growing up. He wouldn’t be surprised at all if Edith had followed suit in her own way.

“I didn’t just mean dangerous for you, though that’s nothing you should sneer at. You don’t wanna know what I’ve heard some guys say about lesbians.” He took a breath, feeling like an ass, but it needed to be said. “I meant it could be bad for me too.”

She slouched back into the couch and pouted at him. “How could what I do possibly be dangerous for you?”

“I work for the federal government, Edie. You think they might not come after me if it comes out my sister, who I live with, is sapphic? I already had to spin a tale about Samuel not knowing what he was doing running numbers for the mob back in ‘37, how good do you think my chances of staying employed with them’ll be if this comes out too? With my leg the way it is?”

“They can’t fire you for your leg,” Edith said mulishly. Her expression was thoughtful though, and Daniel knew he was at least partially getting through to her. Hopefully enough that she wouldn’t do something stupid.

“There’s no law against it,” he said. “I’m still surprised they hired me in the first place.”

“They’d’ve been stupid not to.”

“It’s not like the SSR is lacking for decorated war heroes, Ed. Even that jerkoff Krzeminski’s got a couple of medals to his name.”

“I haven’t even met that guy and I hate him.”

“Be glad you haven’t. He’s exactly the type who would try to ‘cure’ you if he knew.” The very thought of it made Daniel’s blood boil.

Edith was silent, biting her lip and staring at the worn rug for longer than Daniel was comfortable when she spoke again. “Do you think I need to be cured?”

Daniel looked at her, seeing the youth on her face, but also the thoughtful seriousness that had earned her a scholarship in the first place, the first in their family to make it to college.

“Do _you_ think you need to be cured?”

She watched him, no doubt trying to glean what answer he wanted from his face, so he played the sphinx and hoped his eyes didn’t give him away. He wanted her answer to the question, not the one she thought he might want. She bit her lip again and looked away.

“It feels nice, kissing Gloria. It’s felt nice kissing other girls too. It feels like everything bad fades away and all I’m left with is the good. It feels like hope and freedom and possibility.” She paused for a moment before she continued. “I don’t want that to go away.”

Daniel smiled even as his heart broke for her. They’d all thought college was her ticket to a better, easier life, but it would be just as fraught as his, in its own way. He put his arm around her neck.

“Then you’ve got to be smart about it. You can’t get caught. You can’t go with people who might get you caught.”

“I haven’t been caught yet,” she said, then paused. “Well, I guess I’ve been caught by you, but you don’t really count, right?”

That brought a chuckle out of him and he pulled her closer. “No, I don’t really count.”

“Are you gonna tell dad?” She asked in a small voice he hadn’t heard from her since before he shipped out, since right after their mom died.

“If he doesn’t already know, I won’t tell him.”

“Okay,” she said.

He leaned his head against hers and breathed. “Okay.”

 

_May 1946_

It was two days after the mess with Stark and Leviathan wrapped up when Edith stormed into the apartment, slamming the door behind her. Daniel looked up from the book he was reading and watched her stomp across the living room into the closet the apartment claimed as its single official bedroom and slam that door behind her too.

Daniel knew two of her finals were scheduled for today, but he also knew she hadn’t been the slightest bit worried about either of them, and they had ended hours ago besides. He wondered about it a little longer and remembered she had a date with that cow Gloria after class. He sighed. 

If that girl had trampled his baby sister’s heart, he’d… honestly he’d probably do nothing, but he’d sure as hell discourage Edith from ever giving her another chance. Gloria had left a bad first impression with him and hadn’t done a thing in all the months since to improve on it. As far as he was concerned she had no right to be within ten feet of Edith, but he refused to be one of those brothers who dictated his sister’s love life, refused to be like Samuel lording the two minute time difference in their births over Agnes when she started dating Charlie, so he said nothing and stewed in his dislike every time Gloria’s name was so much as mentioned.

No, whatever upset Edith probably wasn’t Gloria. Daniel was just projecting his own issues onto her. Maybe it really was something as simple as a bad exam, or even some ingrate of a neighbor catcalling her as she walked home, instead of a broken heart. He hoped so, anyway. He couldn’t deal with her broken heart on top of trying to ignore his own. 

Fuck.

Months of admiring Peggy, of trying to work up his damn courage for the first time since he was hit to ask her out and she’d turned him down with hardly a thought. Just like Krzeminski said she would. Just like everyone in the office could have told him she would.

Daniel shook his head and turned his attention back to his book, leaving Edith to sulk in peace as she preferred, and allowing himself to sulk alone as he preferred. Then he heard her crying through the wall. 

Dammit. He hated Gloria.

Daniel grabbed his crutches off the floor and maneuvered himself up from the couch, wishing he’d left his prosthesis on when he got home. It was only a few steps from the couch to her door, but he hesitated when he got there, staring at the painted wood and wishing the sound of her sobs would stop on its own.

“Edie?”

“Go away.”

“I can hear you crying through the door.”

“Go away!”

“Tell me this has nothing to do with that cow Gloria and you can cry yourself to sleep for all I care.”

There was a pause and then the door opened, Edith’s face red and puffy and wet and trying so hard to be angry that Daniel couldn’t help pulling her into a one-armed hug.

“She’s a huge cow,” Edith mumbled into his shirt.

“What’d she do?” Daniel asked quietly.

Edith sniffed and pulled away, walking to her bed to sit on it and glare at the floor for a moment before answering. “She got engaged. To some AKPsi jerk who’s probably gonna make a million bucks at whatever boring office job he gets and buy her some ugly colonial upstate as a wedding present.”

Daniel’s shoulders sank. He may have tried competing with the ghost of Captain America, but Edie was up against the MRS degree seeker’s version of the American dream. No way would either of them come out on top next to that.

He crutched across the two feet separating the bed from the door and pivoted to sit next to her, bumping their shoulders together in solidarity.

“I’m sorry. I know you liked her,” he said. It was the most generous thing he’d ever even tried to think about the woman. Edith scoffed and kicked at a dirty sock on the floor.

“You know the worst part?” she asked, turning to look at him. “She told me she wanted to keep seeing me after the wedding. Like some whore. Like she wasn’t shacking up with Mr. Future Success for security and a normal life. Like I don’t deserve better than that.”

Daniel clenched his jaw and turned away. Anything he said right now wouldn’t be something Edith should ever hear.

Edith sniffed again. “I’ve been left before. I’ve even been cheated on. But none of those breakups felt like this.”

Daniel looked back at her and sighed at the tears running down her face. She didn’t resist when he pulled her into a hug, and if she felt his own heartbroken tears fall on her head as she clutched at him, she didn’t comment on them.

“We’re the nicest Sousa kids,” she mumbled after a while. “But here we both are, single and miserable and the worst off of the lot.”

“We’re at least better off than Samuel is.”

“Even he’s got a girlfriend, though.”

Daniel sighed. “Yeah. Even in prison that creep’s got a girlfriend.”

“So not fair.”

“No.”

“We deserve girlfriends Daniel. Good ones, who treat us right.”

“Wouldn’t that be nice,” Daniel said, unable to keep the bitterness out of his voice.

“Hey,” she said, pulling away from him. “Let’s go out. Let’s go out and get so roaringly drunk that we pass out in our beds and won’t wake up until tomorrow afternoon.”

“Edie…”

“Come on, it’s Friday night. They’re not making you work tomorrow after you helped save the world are they?”

“What would you know about it?” Daniel asked, suspicious. 

“I’m smart. I can read between the lines of what you tell me and what the newspapers say. I’m an English major, remember? That’s what we do.” She pinched his side. “Come on. One night of drinking won’t kill us.”

Daniel never did go get that drink after Peggy turned him down yesterday, unable to stomach being around other people in the mood he worked himself into over the course of the day. He looked closely at Edith’s tear-stained face and blotchy complexion. They could both use that drink now, he thought.

“You know what? You’re right,” he said. He reached for his crutches and stood up. “Clean your face and put on something that makes you feel good. Something white so you stand out in the crowd. We’re going out.” 

He knew just the place too. A little lesbian bar a few blocks away from their apartment that he cased shortly after walking in on Edith and Gloria all those months ago. It had some good bands come through most weeks and its clientele were blessedly uninterested in him. With any luck, though, some of them would at least want a dance with Edith tonight. In fact, he was counting on it. One of them needed to have better luck in the love department, and it might as well be her. He could better accept his own misfortunes in life if she was happy.

Edith beamed at him and Daniel forced himself to consider it success enough for the week. His own broken heart would just have to wait.

**Author's Note:**

> Daniel and Edith's apartment layout is actually almost exactly the opposite of the [tenement layouts](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/57772807699168566/) typical of the kind of building they're living in here, precisely because the design assumed people would be sleeping in the living room as Daniel does. A layout with the living room at the front as you enter and the bedroom and kitchen toward the street worked better for how the scenes played out in my head though, so that's what I used.
> 
> [The lavender scare](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavender_scare) was a witch hunt aimed at rooting out homosexuals in government jobs at the same time McCarthy and his cronies were obsessing about communists. In fact, homosexuality was used as an accusation against some suspected communist sympathizers (Paul Child, Julia Child's husband, possibly most famous among the accused) because it was believed the USSR could use a closeted person's sexuality as blackmail against them to get them to spy for the communist cause. And at that point you pretty much had to be closeted at work if you were gay and wanted a job. The lavender scare didn't start in earnest until 1950, but it had its roots during the war, and Daniel pays enough attention to what's going on around him that even in 1945 he'd have at least some inkling that any ties to the gay community would be troublesome for him at best.
> 
> The Americans with Disabilities Act wasn't signed into law until 1990. Let that sink in for a moment. I get the impression Daniel and vets like him only got a social pass for being visibly different because of their service in the war, for whatever good that did. Old infrastructure was not in any way accommodating to anyone not able-bodied or stubborn.
> 
> AKPsi is short for the professional business fraternity, Alpha Kappa Psi, which was founded at NYU on October 5, 1904.
> 
> If you've never heard of the term before, an MRS degree is derisive shorthand for women who go to college with the primary goal of finding a successful husband, regardless of their declared major. In the early 20th century, most college-going women were assumed to be primarily after an MRS degree, whether they actually were or not.


End file.
